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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Disaster relief and social work...

I must admit, I have been very impressed by the relief efforts that have been put forth to help Haiti. I admittedly regret that I cannot personally do more to help. There is a word of warning though when doing relief work. As great as it is for Christians to be involved with relief efforts, as I believe we should be, they need not be the means to an end. If all we do is feed, clothe, and house people then we have vastly missed something. Yes, those things are good and we should be amongst the first people to be doing them, but we must not forget that what we are commanded to do is make disciples in all nations.

Providing food, clothing, and housing for people in need is great, but if that is all we do then we are doing them a great injustice. All of that will be great at the moment, but when these individuals come to the end of their life what will they say? "God, I was fed, clothed, and house by your people, they even told me to blessed in your name." This is not to knock disaster relief and social work, if anything this is to encourage it because we should love the world around us, but love the world in such a way that within our disaster relief and social work, the name of Jesus is proclaimed and a hope for eternity is given, not just for the moment.

If anyone is looking for a different way to help out Haiti specifically, go to http://churcheshelpingchurches.com/